Gunning for God (31 page)

Furthermore, whereas there are copying mistakes in most manuscripts (it is virtually impossible to copy out a lengthy document by hand without making some mistakes), no two manuscripts contain exactly the same mistakes. Therefore, by comparing all these manuscripts with each other, it is possible to reconstruct the original text to a point where expert opinion holds that less than 2 per cent of that text is uncertain, with a large part of that 2 per cent involving small linguistic features that make no difference to the general meaning. Moreover, since no New Testament doctrine depends solely on one verse or one passage, no New Testament doctrine is put in doubt by these minor uncertainties.

Summing up the situation, Sir Frederic Kenyon, who was Director of the British Museum and a leading authority on ancient manuscripts, wrote: “The number of manuscripts of the New Testament, of early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the Church is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or other of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book in the world.”
¹¹

This verdict is approved by Bruce Metzger, Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, one of the world’s most eminent New Testament scholars, and author of
The Text of the New Testament, Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration
.
¹²
He says: “We can have great confidence in the fidelity with which this material has come down to us, especially compared with any other ancient literary work.”
¹³

On this basis, then, we may have every confidence that, when we read the New Testament today, we have for all practical purposes what its original authors intended us to have. That leads us at once to a final important question: how authentic are the Gospels as history?

ARE THE GOSPELS ANCIENT FICTION?

We recall Dawkins’ jibe mentioned earlier in this chapter, that the only difference between the Gospels and
The Da Vinci Code
is that the former were ancient fiction. Similarly, Hitchens thinks that Christians err in “assuming that the four Gospels were in any sense a historical record”.
¹⁴
The error, however, is entirely theirs.

Take as an example the important case of the writings of Luke, whose contribution to the New Testament consists of his Gospel and his history of the beginnings of Christianity, the book of Acts. The first question to ask here (as of any document) is: how does the author expect to be understood? A reader of the New Testament will be struck almost immediately with its strong historical tones. For example, in his introduction to the third Gospel, Luke says:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.
¹⁵

So Luke claims to be writing about events that happened over a period of time, the report being traceable back to eyewitnesses. He also claims that he had conducted his own research, in order to prepare an orderly account for a Roman citizen of high standing called Theophilus, with the object of showing him the certainty of these events.

It belongs to his objectives to anchor his account of the life of Christ firmly in its setting in contemporary history, so he starts his account proper with the statement: “In the days of Herod, king of Judea.” He then dates the events surrounding the birth of Christ in more detail: “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria.”
¹⁶
When he comes to the start of the public life of Christ, he gives even more dating information: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas…”
¹⁷

This kind of detail and method of dating is characteristic of serious ancient historians who wish to mark important events. Luke does not content himself with the “sometime, somewhere” of mythology or historical fiction. He pins down the events accurately to their historical context with checkable information. This demonstrates to his readers that he intends them to take what he writes as serious history. The question is, then: What is the evidence that Luke is credible?

Historical and archaeological research has repeatedly confirmed Luke’s high status as a historian. For example, we quoted above his dating of the beginning of Christ’s public life at a time when
Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene
. For a long time this was cited as evidence that Luke could not be taken seriously as a historian; since it was said to be common knowledge that Lysanias was not a tetrarch, but the ruler of Chalcis half-a-century earlier. The critics fell silent when an inscription was found, dating to the time of Tiberius (
AD
14—37), which named a certain Lysanias as tetrarch in Abila near Damascus — precisely as Luke had said!

Similarly, critics thought Luke was mistaken when he refers in his history of the early Christian church, the book of Acts, to city officials in Thessalonica as “politarchs,”
¹⁸
since there was no evidence from other contemporary Roman documents that such a term was used. Yet subsequently, archaeologists have found over thirty-five inscriptions referring to politarchs, some of them in Thessalonica, dating from the very same period to which Luke was referring.

An earlier generation of scholars felt that the mention of non-Jewish “God-fearers” in the book of Acts
¹⁹
showed that Luke could not be taken as a serious historian, since the existence of such a category of Gentiles was doubtful. However, the ancient historian Irina Levinskaya, of the Russian Academy of Sciences and St Petersburg University, demonstrates impressively that Luke’s account has been vindicated by archaeological research.
²⁰
Inscriptions have been found, indicating the existence of precisely such a class of Gentiles. They are, in fact, listed on one Greek inscription from Aphrodisias under a separate heading from the members of the Jewish community. Levinskaya writes: “The importance of this inscription for the historical controversy about Gentile sympathisers with Judaism lies in the fact that, once and for all, it has tipped the balance and shifted the onus of proof from those who believe in the existence of Luke’s God-fearers to those who have either denied or had doubts about it.”
²¹

The eminent historian Sir William Ramsey, who spent over twenty years doing archaeological research in the areas about which Luke wrote, showed that, in his references to thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities and nine islands, Luke made no mistakes.
²²

In his definitive work Colin Hemer details many areas in which Luke displays very accurate knowledge.
²³
We cite a few of Hemer’s many examples, in order to give the flavour of what has been discovered:

1. Acts 13:7 shows Cyprus correctly as a proconsular (senatorial) province at the time, with the proconsul resident at Paphos;

2. 14:11 shows correctly that Lycaonian was (unusually) spoken in Lystra at the time;

3. 14:12 reflects local interest in, and concepts of, the gods Zeus and Hermes;

4. 16:12: Philippi is correctly identified as a Roman colony, and its seaport is correctly named Nea Polis;

5. 16:14: Thyatira is identified as a centre of dyeing, confirmed by at least seven inscriptions in the city;

6. 17:1 rightly shows Ampipholis and Apollonia as stations on the Egnatian Way from Philippi to Thessalonica;

7. 17:16—18 shows accurate knowledge of Athens: its abundance of idols, its interest in philosophical debate, and its Stoic and Epicurean philosophers and their teachings;

8. Chapters 27—28 show detailed accurate knowledge of the geography and navigational details of the voyage to Rome.

All this accurately recorded detail, and much more besides, supports the considered verdict of Roman historian Sherwin-White: “For Acts the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming… any attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matters of detail must now appear absurd.”
²⁴

Thus Luke has proved to be a first-rate historian, and there is no reason to doubt his record. There is much more that could be said, but surely we can now proceed with some confidence in the historical reliability of our sources to examine what the New Testament offers us as evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.

THE EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION

Not only has there been a vast quantity of historical research on the documentary evidence for the New Testament text; there has also been an immense amount of scholarly effort put into studying the question of the resurrection of Jesus. Philosopher Gary Habermas, who has himself written prolifically on the subject, has compiled an extensive bibliography of over 3,000 scholarly articles and books written (in English, French, and German) in the past thirty-five years alone.
²⁵
In a short work like this, we shall have to content ourselves with distilling the main lines of the argument.

I shall not necessarily expect the reader to share my convictions about the inspiration of the biblical documents; but rather to consider the argument on its own merits, in light of the evidence we can amass from various sources; as indeed we would do with any other texts from ancient history. Indeed, some of the evidence comes from sources other than the New Testament.

I mention this explicitly, since many sceptics seem to disregard the New Testament on the basis of their own
a priori
assumption that it is not inspired — an attitude that they would not adopt with regard to any other text from antiquity.

The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is cumulative, and involves consideration of four different issues:

I. The death of Jesus

II. The burial of Jesus

III. The empty tomb

IV. The eyewitnesses

I. THE DEATH OF JESUS

It is self-evident that there could be no resurrection if Jesus did not really die on the cross. It is therefore important first of all to establish that he actually died. We note firstly that reports of his execution are to be found in a number of ancient non-Christian sources. Josephus (
AD
37—100), a first-century Roman Jewish historian, wrote: “When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified…”
²⁶

In the early second century Tacitus (
AD
56—117), a senator and historian of the Roman empire, wrote: “Nero fastened the guilt [of the burning of Rome] and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty [i.e. crucifixion] during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.”
²⁷

However, some point to Josephus’ record of an instance where someone survived crucifixion, and in light of it they suggest that Jesus did not really die on the cross, but merely fainted; and then, when he was taken down from the cross, he revived in the cool air of the tomb. They claim that, although very weak, Jesus managed to get out of the tomb and was seen by some of his disciples, looking (not surprisingly) pale like a ghost. They imagined that a resurrection had occurred and spread the story around; but in fact Jesus probably simply wandered off and died of his wounds in some obscure, unknown place.

However, this theory does not stand up. Firstly, Josephus mentions that there were three men who were cruficied — all of whom were friends of Josephus; and when he saw their plight he appealed at once to his friend Titus, the Roman Commander, who ordered them to be taken down. Only one of them survived, in spite of receiving the best medical attention of the day. In Jesus’ case the evidence points overwhelmingly to the fact that he was dead before he was taken down from the cross. And even if he had still been alive his chances of survival would have been nil, considering the fact that not only was he pronounced dead, but he was also wrapped in lengthy bandage-type grave-cloths, covered in a great weight of spices, which would have had the effect of extinguishing any vestige of life.

In any case, the extent of Jesus’ injuries guaranteed death. Before he was crucified, he was flogged and had a crown of thorns pressed on to his head.
²⁸
Such flogging, as practised by the Romans, involved the use of a brutal instrument called a
flagrum
, which was like a whip with pieces of metal and bone attached to it. It bit deep into human flesh with the result that the victim sometimes died under its use. In Jesus’ case, he was so weak as a result of the flogging that he was not able to carry the cross as far as the place of execution.
²⁹